Senior Living

Growing up in the 60’s I had heard about “The Roaring 20s.” All I knew about it pertained to a type of music and energetic dancing by girls called “flappers.”

But a lot of things happened in the 1920’s that may find their sequel in the 2020s.

The 1920s started off with a time of great economic prosperity which came to an abrupt halt with the crash of 1929.

The 1920s saw the rise of communism as Russia became the first communist state.

Today communism (now called progressivism or socialism) is on the rise in America.

In an effort to curb the physiological and moral problems associated with alcohol, the Prohibition Movement began in January of 1920 with the backing of the 18th amendment which banned the use of “intoxicating liquors.”

That movement lasted 13 years.

Today in America about 100,000 people die each year from alcohol-related causes.

The opening of the 2020’s has a resurgence of the Human Life Amendment to try and stop the killing of 1,000,000 babies each year in America.

I hope it fares better than the 18th amendment.

George Santayana, an Spanish philosopher of the early 1900’s said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

About 2,500 years prior to Santayana, the prophet Isaiah records God saying, “I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come” (Isaiah 46:10).

About 200 years before, Isaiah King Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes, “There is nothing new under the sun.”

So it would seem that what goes around, comes around.

Jesus gave a confirmation to the ongoing repetitive nature of our fallen world in Matthew 24:6: “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed.

Such things must happen, but the end is still to come.”

Next Week: The battleground of the mind

Dan Williams is the senior adult pastor at Lexington Baptist Church.